Ahmedabad

A tangled mass of factories, mosques, temples and skyscrapers, Gujarat’s commercial hub, AHMEDABAD (pronounced “Amdavad”), sprawls along the banks of the River Sabarmati, about 90km from its mouth in the Bay of Cambay. With a population of around seven million, it is the state’s largest city and has long faced appalling pollution, dreadful congestion and repeated outbreaks of communal violence. However, the mix of medieval and modern makes it a compelling place to explore.

A wander through the bazaars and pols (residential areas) of the old city is rewarding. Ahmedabad is packed with diverse architectural styles, with more than fifty mosques and tombs, plus Hindu and Jain temples and grand step-wells (vavs). The Calico Museum of Textiles is one of the world’s finest, while Gandhi’s Sabarmati Ashram is an must-see for anyone with an interest in the Mahatma.

Particularly in the old city, it’s advisable to cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief to reduce inhalation of carbon monoxide. In 2002, a controversial canal project diverted water from the River Narmada into the Sabarmati, which previously had virtually dried up outside the monsoon. This has given the city a cooler feel, but Ahmedabad has a long way to go before it can breathe easily.

Brief history

When Ahmed Shah inherited the Sultanate of Gujarat in 1411, he moved his capital from Patan to Asawal, on the east bank of the Sabarmati, renaming it after himself. It quickly grew as artisans and traders were invited to settle, and its splendid mosques, intended to assert Muslim supremacy, heralded the new Indo-Islamic style of architecture. In 1572, Ahmedabad became part of the Mughal Empire and, on the back of a flourishing textiles trade, came to be regarded as India’s most handsome city. However, two devastating famines, coupled with political instability, led the city into decline. It wasn’t until 1817, when the newly arrived British lowered taxes, that the merchants returned. A new wave of prosperity came from the burgeoning opium trade, while the introduction of modern machinery re-established the Ahmedabad as a textile exporter. In the run-up to Independence, while Mahatma Gandhi was revitalizing small-scale textile production, the “Manchester of the East” became an important seat of political power and a hotbed for religious tension. While its reputation has been darkened by violent communal rioting, Ahmedabad remains today a booming hub for textiles as well as for IT, education, jewellery, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

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Bhadra Fort and around

The solid fortified citadel, Bhadra, built of deep red stone in 1411 as Ahmedabad’s first Muslim structure, is relatively plain in comparison to the city’s later mosques. The palace is now occupied by offices and most of it is off-limits, but you can climb to the roof via a winding staircase just inside the main gateway. Across from the fort to the east is Alif Shah’s Mosque, gaily painted in green and white. Further on, beyond the odoriferous meat market in Khas Bazaar, is Teen Darwaja, a triple gateway built during Ahmed Shah’s reign that once led to the outer court of the royal citadel. A trio of pointed arches engraved with Islamic inscriptions and detailed carving spans the busy road below.

Sidi Saiyad’s Mosque

Sidi Saiyad’s Mosque, famed for the ten magnificent jali (lattice-work) screens lining its upper walls, sits in the centre of a busy roundabout. Built in 1573, the two semicircular screens on the western wall are its most spectacular, with floral designs exquisitely carved out of the yellow stone. Stonework within depicts heroes and animals from popular Hindu myths – one example of Hindu and Jain craftsmanship influencing an Islamic tradition that rarely allowed the depiction of living beings in its mosques. Women cannot enter this mosque, but the gardens around it afford good views of the screens.

Ahmed Shah’s Mosque

Ahmed Shah’s small but artfully simple mosque was the private place of worship for the royal household. Sections of an old Hindu temple, perhaps dating back to 1250 AD, were used in its construction – hence the incongruous Sanskrit inscriptions on some of the pillars in the sanctuary. The zenana (women’s chamber) is hidden behind pierced stone screens above the sanctuary in the northeast corner.

Jama Masjid

The spectacular Jama Masjid, completed in 1424, stands today in its entirety except for two minarets destroyed by an earthquake in 1957. Always bustling, the mosque is busiest on Fridays, when thousands converge to worship. The 260 elegant pillars supporting the roof of the domed prayer hall (qibla) are covered with unmistakeably Hindu carvings, while close to the sanctuary’s principal arch a large black slab is said to be the base of a Jain idol inverted and buried as a sign of Muslim supremacy.

Immediately outside the east entrance of the mosque, the square Tomb of Ahmed Shah I, who died in 1442, stands surrounded by pillared verandas. Women are not permitted to enter the central chamber, the site of his grave, or those of his son and grandson.

Manek Chowk

The jewellery and textile market of Manek Chowk is filled with craftsmen working in narrow alleys amid newly dyed and tailored cloth. Further into the market, to the east, and surrounded by the dyers’ colourful stalls, is the mausoleum of Ahmed Shah’s queens, Rani-ka-Hazira. Its plan is identical to Shah’s own tomb, with pillared verandas clearly inspired by Hindu architectural tastes.

Mosque and tomb of Rani Sipri

The small, elegant mosque of Rani Sipri was built in 1514 at the queen’s orders. Her grave lies in front, sheltered by a pillared mausoleum. The stylish mosque shows more Hindu influence than any other in Ahmedabad: its pillared sanctuary has an open facade to the east and fine tracery work on the west wall.

Swaminarayan Temple

The brightly coloured Swaminarayan Temple presents a delicate contrast to the many hard-stone mosques in the city. Both the temple and the houses in the courtyard surrounding it are of finely carved wood, with elaborate and intricate patterns typical of the havelis of north and west Gujarat. The temple’s main sanctuary is given over to Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi.

Shaking minarets

Sidi Bashir’s minarets are all that remain of this mosque built in 1452, which was named after one of Ahmed Shah’s favourite slaves. More than 21m high, these are the best existing example of the “shaking minarets” – built on a foundation of flexible sandstone, probably to protect them from earthquake damage – once a common sight on Ahmedabad’s skyline.

Dada Hari-ni Vav and Mata Bhava-ni Vav

Northern Gujarat abounds with remarkable step-wells – deep, with elaborately carved walls and broad flights of covered steps leading to a shaft – but Dada Hari-ni Vav, just outside the city’s old northeast boundaries, is among the finest. While it’s a Muslim construction, built in 1500, the craftsmen were Hindu, and their influence is clear in the lavish and sensuous carvings on the walls and pillars. Visit around 11am when the sculpted floral patterns and shapely figurines inside are bathed in sunlight. Bai Harir’s lofty mosque and lattice-walled tomb stand just west of the well, while a couple of hundred metres north of the complex is the neglected Mata Bhava-ni Vav, probably constructed in the eleventh century, before Ahmedabad was founded. It’s profoundly Hindu in character, and dedicated to Bhava-ni, an aspect of Shiva’s consort Parvati

Hathi Singh Temple

The Jain Hathi Singh Temple is easily distinguished by its high carved column. Built entirely of white marble embossed with smooth carvings of dancers, musicians, animals and flowers, this serene temple is dedicated to Dharamnath, the fifteenth tirthankara, or “ford-maker”, one of twenty-four great teachers sanctified by the Jains.

Calico Museum of Textiles

The Calico Museum of Textiles is India’s finest collection of textiles, clothes, furniture and crafts. Highlights of the morning tour include exquisite pieces made for the British and Portuguese, while from India’s royal households there’s an embroidered tent and Shah Jahan’s robes. There are patola saris from Patan and extravagant zari work that gilds saris in heavy gold stitching, bringing their weight to nearly nine kilos. Other galleries are dedicated to embroideries, bandhani tie-and-dye, textiles made for overseas trade and woollen shawls from Kashmir and Chamba. The afternoon tour includes the galleries of pichwais and other temple paintings and decorations, including Jain statues housed in a replica haveli temple and centuries-old manuscripts and mandalas painted on palm leaves.

Sanskar Kendra (City Museum)

The City Museum is worth a visit, covering subjects such as the history of the city, urban growth, sociological development and the activities of Gandhi and the freedom movement. There is a Kite Museum (same hours) in the basement, showcasing the tradition of city’s January Kite Festival, the world’s largest.

Sabarmati (Gandhi) Ashram

The Sabarmati Ashram is where the Mahatma lived from 1917 until 1930, holding meetings with weavers and Harijans as he helped them find security and re-establish the manual textile industry in Ahmedabad. In keeping with the man’s uncluttered lifestyle, the collection of his personal property is modest but poignant – wooden shoes, white seamless clothes and a pair of round spectacles. The ashram itself is no longer operating, but many people come here simply to sit and meditate.

Godhra and Gujarat’s communal violence

When the BJP shocked India with its landslide victory in the December 2002 election, analysts needed only to point to a single word as an answer for the victory – Godhra. The town was an anonymous railway depot until February 27, 2002, when a Muslim mob set fire to railway cars filled with Hindu pilgrims returning from the controversial temple at Ayodhya, killing 58.

The incident sparked huge riots across Gujarat. Muslim neighbourhoods burned while sword- and stick-wielding Hindus rampaged, looted and raped. In many cases, police forces allegedly stood by and watched. The official count death count reached almost one thousand, more than two thirds of them Muslim, while hundreds of thousands more were displaced.

Gujarat’s BJP chief minister Narendra Modi earned the moniker “Muslim killer” for standing idly by as the violence continued. Just after the NGO Human Rights Watch reported Gujarat state officials “were directly involved” in the killings and that they were engaged in a “massive cover-up of the state’s role in the violence”, parliament attempted to censure the BJP government. Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee apologized for not having “tried harder” to end the riots and announced a $31 million rehabilitation package.

Still, following a campaign filled with Hindutva rhetoric pledging to “to prevent” another Godhra, a blatant attempt to amass Hindu votes amid a climate of ethnic tension, Modi went on to secure a landslide win in the next election and has remained in power ever since, becoming Gujarat’s longest-serving chief minister and continuing to try to block prosecution of the rioters.

In 2004, however, following protests against biased state authorities, the Supreme Court ordered more investigation into the riots, calling for a re-opening of more than two thousand dismissed cases. Just months before the 2007 state elections, respected magazine Tehelka published secretly filmed footage of senior Gujarati Hindu politicians, mainly from the BJP, describing their own active involvement in fanning the riots. The report alleged that Modi allowed the violence to continue unabated, ordered the police to side with Hindu rioters and sheltered the perpetrators from justice. Still, he was again resoundingly re-elected, and his name has subsequently been thrown about as a possible 2014 candidate for prime minister.

At last, in 2011, dozens of those guilty of the Godhra fire were convicted and sentenced, and in 2012, hundreds more of the rioters were convicted, including a former state minister, the first political implication in the post-Godhra riots.

For an in-depth account of the post-Godhra violence and the causes behind it, read Ward Berenschot’s Riot Politics: India’s Communal Violence and the Everyday Mediation of the State (2012).